Durham program gives skills for kindergarten

DURHAM -- If only Ethan Wagner's 4-year-old foot could reach the gas pedal of his grandmother's car, he might have driven himself to school the past month.

The rising kindergartner has been surprisingly eager every morning to get to Stepping Stones, his kindergarten prep program. He even goes to bed early -- without a fuss -- and wakes up racing out the door, nearly leaving his grandmother Emma Wagner behind, she said.

"It's really been a big change for him," Emma Wagner said.

Come Monday, Emma Wagner doesn't know what Ethan will do with that enthusiasm -- he and 34 other E.K. Powe elementary pupils graduated from Stepping Stones on Friday. During a short ceremony, they received certificates that deemed them ready for school's first day Aug. 25.

Each year, about a fourth of rising kindergartners in Durham have little to no preschool experience and come to school underprepared, estimated Jeanne Bishop, principal at Powe.

Most have never walked through the halls of a big school, learned how to stand in a line or even how to hold a book -- concepts that might seem like common sense to most adults.

"People take for granted that kids just sort of acquire it, but it needs to be taught," said Andrea Hamilton, program coordinator for Stepping Stones. So the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, an initiative endowed by Duke University to improve eight schools close to campus, began Stepping Stones this summer to better prepare students for school.

Twenty-three participants will be entering kindergarten. A dozen students were first-graders who needed a refresher course in reading and math before returning to Powe, Hamilton said.

"All of the parents have done the best they know how," Hamilton said of the families. But children enter school at all different levels of ability, and the program strives to narrow those gaps, she said.

Instead of sending their children to formal preschools, many parents keep them home or send them to less-structured day care programs, where they don't receive as much standardized instruction as other children, Hamilton said.

"We can't stuff a whole year of pre-kindergarten into four weeks, but they're learning what school is about," said Susie Gilbert, one of five teachers in the program.

Though brief, the one-month program did have a big effect on Tanisha Mack's two boys. Derrick, who is entering first grade, is a lot less frustrated with reading.

"Before, he would rush without taking time to sound out his words," Mack said. "Now, he's taking his time."

Her other son, rising kindergartner Malachi, is "finally coming out of his shell."

The program was free to all families, the costs absorbed by the Durham Public Schools and the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership. The program will return to Powe next year, and could expand.

Meanwhile, when this summer's graduates arrive at Powe in three weeks, school won't be so big and scary -- they'll see familiar faces in the principal, the teachers they had this summer, and even some of the students.

It will ease worry for both the students and their parents, including Danielle Terrell, mother of Ethan Wagner.

"He's going to be awesome in school," she said.